Little Italy

Little Italy is a neighborhood of lower Manhattan, New York City, once known for its large Italian population. The mass immigration of Italians to the United States starting in the 1880s led to the growth of the Little Italy neighborhood, and 10,000 Italians lived in the neighborhood in 1910; Harlem was acutally the location of the largest Italian population in New York City, not Little Italy. After World War II, many Italians moved to Brooklyn, Staten Island, Long Island, and New Jersey, and the immigration of Chinese people during the 1960s led to the growth of Chinatown to the south and the shrinkage of Little Italy. The dominance of Italians in the area was short lived, and, in 2004, Little Italy consisted of just 50 tourist-oriented Italian restaurants and cafes and tenements mostly owned by Chinese people and youths who could not afford to live in Soho; only a few Italians remained in the area. By the 2010s, Little Italy was more of a nostalgic term, and the area rapidly shrunk. In 2008, Little Italy had a small population of 1,046 people.